


(The Start of) the End of the World

by TheBookwormBakery



Series: mom said it's my turn on the keyblade [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, End of the World, Gen, i finally wrote where it actually diverges lmao, leads pretty much directly into hand in hand, written between chapters 7 and 8 of hand in hand if you care about that sort of thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 09:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18870406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBookwormBakery/pseuds/TheBookwormBakery
Summary: In another story, the darkness is too fast, Sora’s hesitation too long. Kairi loses her heart, and it seeks refuge in another.This is not that story.





	(The Start of) the End of the World

The sky churns like a stormy sea, giving the disorienting impression that the world has been turned upside down. Hanging above the island is a dark sphere that spits out lightning and dark clouds, seemingly generating the storm.

Sora’s boat hits the dock and he leaps out, not even bothering to tie it up. Two other boats already bob up and down in the choppy water - Riku and Kairi must have seen the storm and come out here too.

As soon as his feet touch solid land, weird shadowy bug creatures sprout up from the ground. Beady, glowing yellow eyes focus on Sora, and he feels a stab of terror. He scoops up his wooden sword - why had he left it all the way out on the dock? - and takes a swing at the nearest one.

The sword passes right through it.

That’s… really not good.

The creature swipes at him, dark claws raking his arm. It doesn’t manage to break his skin; instead of red welts, the claws leave streaks of too-pale skin. It feels cold, like someone dripped ice water across his skin where the marks are. Sora backs away, looking for a place to hide - and he spots Riku on the little island with the paopu tree. He bolts, ducking away from more swipes. A few of them graze his legs and the same chill makes him stumble.

He looks up as he crosses the bridge. The sphere in the sky looks like it’s getting bigger - and darker. Riku is standing with his back to the island, staring out to sea. Kairi isn’t with him. Had they not come together? And if she’s not with Riku, where is she?

“Where’s Kairi?” Sora pants. “Is she not with you?”

“The door has opened…” Riku sounds half asleep, trancelike.

Sora takes a hesitant step forward. “What?”

“The door has opened, Sora!” Riku repeats. “Now we can go to the outside world!”

What, _now?_ With everything going on? “What are you talking about? We’ve gotta find Kairi!”

“Kairi’s coming with us!” Riku says, his voice becoming sharper. “Once we step through, we might not be able to come back. We may never see our parents again. There’s no turning back.”

Sora takes a step back. Riku’s looking up at the sphere in the sky - which seems a lot lower now - like it _isn’t_ a horrifying storm of swirling darkness and lightning.

“But this may be our only chance,” he continues. He looks back at Sora. There’s a faraway look in his eyes, like most of him is somewhere else even though he’s talking to Sora. “We can’t let fear stop us. I’m not afraid of the darkness!”

He holds out his hand. Sora doesn’t take it.

“Riku, what...?”

A pool of whatever the sphere in the sky is made of appears around Riku’s feet and Sora jumps back. The dark smoke swirls up Riku’s legs, then his chest. Sora starts to run forward, and stops as the smoke - except it’s not smoke, it’s something much more solid, and as cold as the claws of those creatures - starts to swirl up around him too. He reaches out for RIku, who hasn’t even seemed to notice the dark smoke, hasn’t even moved. The smoke almost seems to hold him back, and he stretches his arm as far forward as he can. His feet are being held down; trying to lift him feels like what he imagines quicksand is like. The darkness covers Riku’s face, then his own. Sora lunges forward, desperately reaching out for where he _knows_ RIku’s hand is. His fingertips brush Riku’s glove -

And then, light.

Sora stumbles forward as the light fades, filling him with a lingering warmth. The darkness holding him place is gone - but so is Riku. And in the hand he was reaching out with is a giant silver key, with a golden handle.

Something whispers in the back of his mind, naming it: _Keyblade…_

More of the creatures rise up all around him, too close for him to duck away. On instinct he swings the Keyblade, and is completely surprised when it actually makes contact instead of passing through. The creature he hits lets out a little squeak and jumps back. Sora charges it before it can regroup and hit him again, hitting it twice more with the Keyblade before it bursts into fragments of shadow. The other creatures look a little more hesitant about getting close to him now, and he takes the opportunity to sprint past them over the bridge.

His eyes land on the entrance to the Secret Place. Instead of the hole in the greenery that should be there, an ornate white door is set into the rock.

_“The door has opened…”_

Sora dodges the creatures that pop up, smacking them out of the way with the key, and pulls open the door. Behind it is the unchanged tunnel leading into the Secret Place, but as he steps in he feels a gust of bitterly cold wind blow past him. “Kairi?” he calls.

The inside is darker than it probably should be. There’s no response, but he hears someone moving further in. He follows the sound, holding the Keyblade tightly in both hands. The tunnel widens, and he skids to a stop when he sees Kairi standing in the middle of the chamber, in front of the strange wooden door. Her back is to him, just like Riku’s was, and his stomach does a backflip. What is going on with his friends tonight? “Kairi!”

She turns slowly. She looks pale, like she’s sick. She looks right at him, but her eyes don’t seem to focus. “Sora…” She takes a shuffling half-step forward, and holds out her hand.

Sora’s eyes drift over to the door, and his entire body goes cold. Behind it, he can almost feel something _shift._

* * *

 

In another story, the darkness is too fast, Sora’s hesitation too long. Kairi loses her heart, and it seeks refuge in another.

This is not that story.

 

* * *

He’s across the chamber in an instant, reaching for Kairi. He’s not about to let another friend disappear tonight.

Kairi’s eyes widen, suddenly focusing, and she grabs his hand.

The door bursts open and a dark, icy wind blasts out. It pushes Kairi onto him, and keeps pushing, knocking him off his feet and carrying both of them out through the tunnel and tumbling onto the sand.

Somehow, everything has gotten even _worse._

The beach, the shack, half the island, really - it’s all just _gone_ without a trace. He and Kairi had landed mere feet from where the sand cuts off. The sky has been all but blocked out by the dark sphere. Bits of the ground are being torn away and sucked up into it, like those black hole things his teachers talked about.

He doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen if it sucks him up, too.

Kairi coughs, spitting out sand.

“Kairi!”

She grabs blindly for his arm, using it to pull herself off the ground. Her fingers dig into his skin, and she looks worse than she did before. It takes him a second to realize she’s trying to say something. “There’s… behind us…”

The ground shakes, and Sora spins around as he gets to his feet.

Dwarfing what’s left of the island is a giant shadowy creature with a heart-shaped hole going right through its chest. Its yellow eyes stare down at him from the center of a wild mass of dark tendrils.

The Keyblade reappears in his hand and he looks over at Kairi. “Try to stay away from it,” he says. “And, uh… Don’t fall off.”

She seems to be recovering from whatever made her sick, although she’s still pale; she nods firmly and stumbles to her feet.

Sora focuses on the giant creature and charges. It moves a lot slower than the other ones; it’s easy for him to sidestep out of the way as it ponderously brings one hand down. The hand sinks into the ground, generating a pool of shadows and some more of the smaller creatures, and Sora takes the opportunity to just whale on its wrist. The creature very slowly recoils, and Sora dispatches the smaller ones while he watches it for its next move.

The creature curls in on itself before throwing its arms back, and a glowing purplish orb appears in the hole in its chest. Its fists are within reach, so Sora keeps focusing on those. Bursts of energy fire out from the orb and circle back around, aiming for Sora and - alarmingly - Kairi.

“Watch out!” he yells.

She looks up just in time to see one of the bursts flying toward her, and dives out of the way. “What is that?” she calls out. “And what are you _holding!?_ ”

“I don’t know, and I think it’s called a Keyblade!”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know that either!”

While he’s distracted, one of the bursts hits him in the chest, knocking him over and making him gasp for breath.

Kairi runs over with a piece of wood that looks like it might have been part of the shack, and tries to hit the creature in the leg. It naturally passes right through the creature, and Kairi nearly falls over. “How come _you_ can hurt it!?” she yells, frustrated.

“I don’t know, just move!” Sora smacks the last burst away with the Keyblade.

“Do you know _anything?_ ”

“I know this is really, really bad!”

The creature has shifted its focus to Kairi, and she backs away from it as it raises its hand again. Sora leaps up and puts every ounce of his strength into slashing it across the stomach.

The creature straightens stiffly to its full height - and keeps going. It rises completely off the ground and falls up into the sphere.

“Sora!”

Kairi has found a piece of dock buried in the ground, and is clinging to it like a lifeline; meanwhile the ground around Sora is swiftly disappearing. He sprints for Kairi and the dock. Just before he gets there, he’s lifted off the ground. Kairi grabs his wrist and pulls him back down so that both of them are holding onto the buried wood.

The pull from the sky gets stronger and stronger, until it feels like he’s hanging down from the ceiling instead of trying to stay on the ground. The island around them has been reduced to just a few feet on all sides, and sticks and leaves are whipping around in a wind that seems to steal the warmth right out of Sora’s chest. A thick stick hits Kairi’s hands, and she screams as she loses her grip on the dock. Sora just barely grabs her hand; now he’s got one hand holding on to her and one clinging to the dock, slowly slipping loose as it tries to support their combined weight. He can either let her go or let the dock go.

Faced with a choice between the ground and Kairi, Sora chooses Kairi. He lets go of the dock and pivots to grab her other hand as the sphere hungrily pulls them closer.

“Are you crazy?” she yells over the roaring wind.

“It was that or let you go!” he yells back.

She stares at him with wide eyes.

At some point the gravity of the sphere stops pulling him away from the ground - he can’t even see it anymore - and starts pulling him away from _Kairi._ He tightens his grip, but his hands have been doing a lot of work lately and he can feel his grip weakening.

Apparently, so can Kairi. “Don’t let go!” she pleads.

Sora grits his teeth. “I’m trying!” One of his hands gives up, and Kairi yelps. He can see in her eyes the moment she realizes neither of them can hold on anymore.

Kairi’s hand slips through his fingers, and he falls upward through the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> The urge to write this hit me in the middle of a long drive, and then when I got home I slammed it out in a few hours. I initially skipped it for hand in hand because I didn't know how I wanted to do it, and also half of it would have been just me transcribing the actual game so I didn't think it would be interesting, but now..... here it is.
> 
>  
> 
> [check out my kh blog if you want](https://sorikaimutual.tumblr.com)


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